Normally, “remote-controlled” makes you think of a manageable size for a vehicle. The typical little battery-powered off-roader or the toy helicopter, that sort of thing. This Concorde isn’t a toy. It’s a 1:6 scale monster that’s within spitting distance in length to an MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle, it weighs in at roughly the weight of a sport quad, carries almost six Imperial gallons of fuel, and is running four JetCat P300-PRO turbines that produce 67 pounds of thrust each…and cost over five thousand dollars, each. So no, this is no toy. This is a labor of love, one man’s determination to build a super-size homage to the SST transport that made supersonic Atlantic travel possible into the 2000s, the thin tube with the delta wing and the droop-snoot nose that pulled up into a dart shape. All that’s missing are the afterburners, and as far as we know, nobody is making scale versions of a burner yet.
This Concorde is the creation of one Otto Widlroither, who spent a year planning the build on the computer and two years actually putting it together. This is it’s maiden flight, and if you note, they are at an actual airport using an actual runway. And that leads to a question: how annoyed would a general aviation pilot be when they are told to wait for departure due to a remote-controlled aircraft?
“Cessna N437, you are clear for takeoff on runway 27L, caution wake turbulence from departing R/C Concorde.”
“Roger, N437 cleared for…wait…what?!”
Fire the headline-writer. \”IT\’S\” should be \”ITS\”. Good grief.